THE LONGEST NIGHT

Someone turned the bust of Russell Peterson toward
the corner wall, just as it has happened in past years
on June 30 in Legislative Hall.

It is like the cognac and roses that turned up for so
long on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.

Things go bump in the night on June 30, when the
Delaware General Assembly leaves Dover for the year,
although never before the clock ticks into the early
hours of July 1.

Deadlines and sleep deprivation. What a way to run a
government.

Russell Peterson is part of the general silliness. He
was the Republican governor from 1969 to 1973, although
he became a Democrat a couple of decades later. Past
governors have their portraits painted, expect for
Peterson, who had a bust done by Charles Parks, the
noted sculptor from Delaware.

It is a mystery why a governor would want to be
remembered as a bust, but Peterson is. Whatever, it
makes for an easy prank on June 30, although not for
long.

The sculpture was face front after several hours. No
one puts Russell Peterson in the corner.

Not counting Peterson's annual about-face, the end of
the two-year legislative term seemed more subdued than
usual, and it had a right to.

The first year was absorbed with a monstrous budget
hole brought on by the Great Recession, and the second
half was colored by the monstrous case of Earl Bradley,
the pediatrician accused of sexually preying on his
patients while the government and medical profession
slept.

If there is a lasting image from this June 30, it is
the bill-signing ceremony for nine new laws compelled by
the Bradley case, the state's way of saying, "Never
again."

This was not a typical bill-signing ceremony. It was
not held in the governor's office but outside on
Legislative Hall's east steps, where a lectern and a
desk were set up. Rows of legislators stood behind them,
as though they were lined up for a class picture, but no
one was smiling.

"Usually bill signings are an opportunity to
celebrate. That's not why we're here today. Today we
come together with heavy hearts and solemn thoughts over
one of the great tragedies in our state's history," said
Jack Markell, the Democratic governor.

"It is customary after a bill signing to applaud. I
ask that there be no applause today."

The ceremony had the air of a formal apology. The
grim face of Beau Biden, the Democratic attorney
general, was a thunderous shade of copper as he looked
on. Cathy Cloutier, a Republican state senator, said,
"The governor ran it like a funeral."

June 30 is notorious for legislative shenanigans, but
they also were down this year, primarily because of a
new Freedom of Information Act.

The open-government law was long advocated by Karen
Peterson, a Democratic state senator, but it languished
until Bob Gilligan became the speaker when the Democrats
took over the House of Representatives last year, and he
gave it the clout it needed. The two legislators go way
back, to the days Gilligan was Peterson's basketball
coach at St. Elizabeth High School in Wilmington.

The new law meant there was less opportunity for
legislators to play hide-and-go-seek.

It led to the detection of suspicious language in the
grant-in-aid bill unfriendly to special education
programs. There was a tense showdown behind the scenes,
threatening the passage of the bill that gives money to
volunteer fire departments, senior centers and other
community agencies, but the language did get changed.

The grant-in-aid bill was passed shortly before two
in the morning, the last action standing in the way of a
ride home. Freedom of Information ruled.

In the depths of night, the legislature was in the
dark, not the public.